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We should have known. When it looked like his decision was coming down to a choice between the Blue Jays and the Orioles on Saturday afternoon, he put his decision on hold. It seemed like he was just waiting for someone to sweeten the offer, when in fact he was looking for a different division, another league.

In this Aug. 20, 2013 file photo, Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Ervin Santana throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox, in Kansas City, Mo. The Atlanta Braves have signed Santana to bolster their injury plagued starting rotation. (Charlie Riedel / AP FILE PHOTO)

Finally the Braves, suddenly in need of a veteran starter, joined the hunt and landed the Dominican right-hander for a reported $14 million, the same dollar amount as the Jays’ offer.

Jays’ players had put in their two cents worth, publicly imploring Santana to join them in Toronto, but even that personal touch wasn’t enough. In the end, it wasn’t the money or the friendships that he already had within the walls of the Jays’ clubhouse that decided it. It was where he could put up the better personal numbers in 2014 and thus earn a bigger contract for 2015 and beyond. Even though succeeding in the ever-tough AL East would have made him a star. It’s disappointing about the man.

Santana may feel he was wronged by the free-agent system, but when an athlete prefers money over on-field challenge, there’s not much a general manager like Alex Anthopoulos can do.

The Jays should have been the one. They had an interest in Santana right from Day One of the process back in early November. Santana knew that and so among all his suitors, Toronto should have been accorded the most respect. The O’s entered late, after locking up Ubaldo Jimenez for four years and $50 million, then realizing they could use another solid starter, but only in the short term.

The Royals, his 2013 team leading into free-agency, viewed the offer the Jays were reportedly making, which was basically the same as the $14.1 million MLB qualifying offer and let him know that at that price they were still a player. The Twins tried to entice him with a three-year offer that made no sense. Then came the right elbow injury to Braves starter Kris Medlen and all of a sudden they became players.

The Braves had just locked up much of their young talent and, with the Medlen injury, were in danger of having to rely on Freddy Garcia, whose “best before” date was long ago reached.

For the Jays it was more than just securing an experienced mid-rotation starter — and who knows in hindsight, how much, if any one-year dollar amount it would have taken to sway Santana to choose Toronto. But the bottom line is that Anthopoulos doesn’t chase. He sets a number that he believes the player is worth, using history and projections, and stays as close to it as possible. He was never going to separate his Santana offer from the other clubs by enough dollars to get it done.

If Santana had strolled through the clubhouse door in Dunedin toting his Royals equipment bag, it would have been a Blue Jays moment that could not be quantified statistically. For a clubhouse that was promised help from outside and needed good health from within, the signing of the veteran right-hander would have been a promise kept. Whatever numbers, the 31-year-old ended up posting in 2014, it would have given Jays fans — especially ticket subscribers — reason to believe.

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Anthopoulos sticks to his guns and sometimes it’s frustrating to watch. The fifth-year GM refused to bump his offer to free-agent lefthander Aroldis Chapman years ago when the Reds entered with an elevated amount at the last minute, even though he had ownership’s blessing to do so.

Santana had entered the off-season believing that he was a five-year $100 million free-agent. It became the winter of his discontent as time went by and the offers never came. With the Royals in 2013, he posted a 9-10 record, with 211 innings pitched in 32 starts. Anthopoulos would not have done $50 million for four years, but was willing to do one at a higher average annual value. The Orioles deal with Jimenez was far beyond what Anthopoulos believed he was worth and with Santana generally regarded as 1B to Jimenez’s 1A, the Jays thought they were done with free agency.

But then came word that Santana was willing to go with the best one-year offer. The player logic made sense. If he made $14 million in ’14 and was given another qualifying offer next winter at close to $15 million that would be $29 million in two seasons. If his ’14 team did not make a qualifying offer, he would be freed from the shackles of compensation and teams would be more inclined to give him the 3-4 year deal he believed he deserved. But he clearly did not want to fail in that one season and the best chance of that would be if he signed in the AL East. That is pitching scared.

Critics talk about Santana’s career propensity to allow the home run ball and how that would have affected his effectiveness at the launching pad that is the Rogers Centre. Again, it’s a case where numbers don’t always tell the full story. Lifetime in Toronto, Santana has made eight starts, with a 3-3 record and a 4.15 ERA in 52 innings. He has allowed six homers, averaging almost 6.2 innings per start. His career ERA is 4.19 in 268 games, with 229 homers allowed. Santana, over the last five season, including 2009, posted a 3-1, 3.00 ERA in six Rogers Centre starts. He is another workhorse that would have fit nicely behind R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle and ahead of Brandon Morrow.

So how does the Jays’ rotation shape up right now? Shaky. Any team that wants to compete usually needs its top three starters to combine for around 600 innings. The tandem of Dickey and Buehrle at the top are both 200 inning guys when healthy. That’s a solid beginning.

The Jays rely on 29-year-old Brandon Morrow as the No. 3 guy, even though he has never pitched more than 179.1 innings in any MLB season. After that, Anthopoulos has been pumping the tires of Drew Hutchison, making comparisons to Shaun Marcum when the former Jays starter, following surgery, missed an entire season then bounced back to throw 195 the next year.

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